New evidence casts doubt on Sir Geoffrey Boycott’s assault case, friends claim
Margaret Moore told a packed French courtroom in January 1998 that Sir Geoffrey Boycott pinned her down and punched her more than 20 times.
“He’s a very strong man. I was screaming and screaming. I couldn’t stop him,” she said. The former England cricketer, meanwhile, insisted his ex-girlfriend had bumped her head while drunkenly “hitting and kicking” him – a claim she furiously denied.
The magistrates believed Ms Moore and delivered a guilty verdict that has since cast a long shadow over Sir Geoffrey’s career and reputation.
But more than 20 years later, The Daily Telegraph has uncovered new evidence that – according to Sir Geoffrey’s friends – may raise doubts about Ms Moore’s story.
Months after the first trial, it can be disclosed, Ms Moore was reported to police after allegedly attacking another man during a jealous rage before attempting to throw a stewardess off a luxury yacht.
The incident is said to have taken place on the French Riviera in summer 1998. Speaking out for the first time, the yacht’s captain and the stewardess separately recalled how Ms Moore had behaved like a raging “pit bull” during a trip only weeks after the Boycott trial. Both questioned whether Sir Geoffrey had been wrongfully convicted.
“After what I saw, I am not so sure that [Sir Geoffrey] is guilty as charged,” Chas McLaren, the captain, said. Ms Moore, now aged 67 and living near Monaco, admitted last night that she had chartered a yacht at around that time with a “friend”, Sir Nicholas Scott, the former Conservative MP who died in 2005. But she insisted she had no memory of attacking Sir Nicholas or the stewardess. A separate source close to Ms Moore’s family, however, confirmed there had been an “incident on a boat” in the summer of 1998.
Last week, news of Sir Geoffrey’s knighthood prompted an outcry from domestic violence campaigners who said he was unworthy of the honour. But friends said the new evidence suggested he had fallen victim to a miscarriage of justice because Ms Moore was “clearly violent when drunk”, and “totally unreliable”.
“She was a bunny boiler who came after Geoffrey for his money,” a close friend of Sir Geoffrey claimed.
Speaking in the French town of Antibes, Mr McLaren said Ms Moore’s behaviour had “preyed on my conscience” ever since, because he now believes Sir Geoffrey may be innocent.
Mr McLaren, 66, said he was skippering a luxury launch called Sportsman in the summer of 1998 when he got a call to take Ms Moore and a companion on a long weekend cruise. DT.
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